Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1887-04-14
ONLY A BRAKEMAN.
& Plea for the Faithful Men Who Risk
Their Lives Every Day.

| & Plea for the Faithful Men Who Risk
Their Lives Every Dav.
According to the Chicago Herald an in
| stance of the cruelty of our modern civil
! ization and its infinitely diversified APP
| pliances and customs is found in the fact
| that the death of railway employee,
! through one of the MINOR casualties of his
| calling, is no longer considered worthy Of
| mention in the news columns of metro
| politan newspaper; or, if mentioned at
| all, line is generally sufficient to
chronicle the bare fact, details being ut
terly neglected. In the dispatches it used
to be:
| by a broken rail seven freight cars
were thrown off the track near this place
last night and their contents, consistin g
of valuable merchandise, almost de-
st-oyed The loss of the company will
reach $4,000. Passenger trains were de-
!ayed nearly an hour. a rigid investiga
ton will follow. One brakeman was
killed"
Formerly minor accidents to employees
were telegraphed to city papers, but now
all correspondents are instructed to omit
sending intelligence concerning the
common accidents of the rail, IN which
employees only suffer, unless the fatali-
ties number more than one or some unu SUI
al circums tanceS or causes are present.
Almost every week some railway en-
ploye loses his lite or limb in the Chicago
railway yards without any mention of the
casualty being made in the city papers
This seems cruel, but the truth is that
sort of news is rarely worth printing
AS the world goes these items are unim.
portant, and newsmen neglect them. But
with passengers it is quite different. The
commonest accident involving the safety
OF passenger or injury to his person Is
carefully investigated and reported. And
JUS now the papers are filled with articles
demanding that the death-dealing stove
shall be banis he'd: that safety gates be
put up at all crossings, and that every
, possible precaution be taken to secure the
safety of the travelling public and for pc
dcstrians and street travellers who must
cross railway tracks. But not word is
heard in behalf of the employees, whom
the juggernauts of the rail are slau ghter-
ing and manning by the thousands every
year.
'Only brakeman killed" What
story the figures of railway tell, and,
after all, there is nothing like cold figures
to point moral or tell tale. In Massa-
chusetts last year only one passenger IN
1854, 25S was killed, and one in 2, 166, 93l in
jureu. This ratio is not an alarming one
but when we come to employees the ratio
-
ties to employees, G3 of which were fatal.
On the Fitchburg road l employee out of
every 81 was injured On other roads
about 1 in 121. Most CT these casualties
were in coupling or uncoupling cars.
Forty eight, or nearly one a week, were
injured in this way on one road. One can,
therefore, readily believe that on almost
any of our larger railways of the
West a man day is the aver
age ratio of the rapacious demon
of car coupling. Next come casual
ties to trainmen from falling from trains
over one week in the whole State of
Massachusetts, and probably twice or
thrice as many as in Illinois. Take the
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy road for
home instance, and than the Burlington
there is no better managed road in the
world. In recent year this road carried
in Illinois 2,T0,000 passengers. Half
dozen of these were injured and none
killed. Of the 1900 engineers, fremen,
brakemen, baggagemen, swltchmen and
conductors employed in Illinois, more
than 200 were killed or injured. In fully
one-fourth of the cases the demon coup
ling was the agent of injury or death. All
along the line of every railway in the
country, and particularly in the division
station towns, where many railway en-
ployes live, will be found small armies of
widows, orphans and manned men.